NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jury in New York on Wednesday sentenced Ronell Wilson to death for killing two undercover police officers in 2003, setting up what would be the first federal execution of a New York defendant in six decades. The jury's verdict in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn is the second capital sentence for Wilson, 31, who originally was sentenced to death in 2007 for murdering two officers posing as gun buyers during an attempted sting operation in Staten...

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A man killed by police after robbing an Arizona bank is believed to be the same suspect who killed a police officer in Mississippi just five days earlier, authorities said on Sunday. According to federal court records, the man had also served a brief prison term for threatening to kill President Barack Obama in 2010 and had been ordered by a judge to receive mental health treatment. The suspect was identified on Sunday...

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A man killed by police after robbing an Arizona bank is believed to be the same suspect who killed a police officer in Mississippi just five days earlier, authorities said on Sunday. According to federal court records, the man had also served a brief prison term for threatening to kill President Barack Obama in 2010 and had been ordered by a judge to receive mental health treatment. The suspect was identified on Sunday...

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A New York man was sentenced to death for a second time in federal court on Tuesday for killing two undercover detectives, three years after his first death verdict was overturned on appeal. Ronell Wilson, 31, is the only federal defendant to be sentenced to death in New York in 60 years. In sentencing Wilson, U.S. District Judge Nicolas Garaufis also excoriated the federal Bureau of Prisons as...

The words of deceased cop killer Andrew Wilson were heard Monday by a federal jury that will decide whether retired Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge lied about the alleged abuse of dozens of suspects. Wilson's testimony from his 1989 lawsuit against Burge was read in court by a young, clean-cut FBI agent, while photos of Wilson — his face covered in bandages, his chest and thighs seared with burns from a radiator, and tiny marks on his nose and ears from where wires were...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jury in New York on Wednesday sentenced Ronell Wilson to death for killing two undercover police officers in 2003, setting up what would be the first federal execution of a New York defendant in six decades. The jury's verdict in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn is the second capital sentence for Wilson, 31, who originally was sentenced to death in 2007 for murdering two officers posing as gun buyers during an attempted sting operation in Staten...

Ever the doting father, Chicago police Officer Nathaniel Taylor was excited about spending a Sunday morning with his only daughter. Taylor had planned to pick up 6-year-old Naomi, who lived with her mother, after work. But just hours before his overnight shift ended, the veteran narcotics officer, 39, was gunned down by a reputed drug dealer while trying to serve a search warrant on the South Side. On Tuesday, the girl's mother, Monlade Gogins, choked up on the witness...

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES, April 10 (Reuters) - A California couple tied up in their mountain cabin by a former policeman wanted by authorities for a grudge-driven killing spree told an emergency call operator that he had likely been hiding in there for days. The conversation, contained in tapes made public on Wednesday, offered a glimpse into the dramatic final hours before the ex-cop, Christopher Dorner, died on Feb 12 after a shootout...

The death sentence of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose case has been an international cause celebre, was overturned Thursday by a U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia, but his bid for a new trial was rejected. The 25-year legal battle over Mumia's fate showed no sign of ending, however, because both the prosecutor and defense said they saw grounds for appeal. Thursday's decision upheld a lower court ruling in 2001 that overturned the death sentence in the 1981 slaying...

Ever the doting father, Chicago police Officer Nathaniel Taylor was excited about spending a Sunday morning with his only daughter. Taylor had planned to pick up 6-year-old Naomi, who lived with her mother, after work. But just hours before his overnight shift ended, the veteran narcotics officer, 39, was gunned down by a reputed drug dealer while trying to serve a search warrant on the South Side. On Tuesday, the girl's mother, Monlade Gogins, choked up on the witness...

When Ice-T asked Time Warner in July to pull the controversial track "Cop Killer" from the Sire/Warner Bros. Records album by his group Body Count, he said he would offer the single free to anyone who asked for it. However, to date, no singles have been given away because they have not been pressed. "It's certainly his prerogative to do this, but we haven`t pressed any tapes and have no intention of doing so," a Warner Bros. spokesman told Billboard magazine. Ice-T's...

A former Chicago man whose planned parole sparked outrage 43 years after he killed two police officers in a Northlake bank robbery has died behind bars. In a brief notice sent Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons stated that Henry Michael Gargano, 79, died Oct. 13 in a North Carolina federal medical correctional center. Afflicted with emphysema and stricken by two heart attacks, Gargano had been at the facility since last autumn. The son of a university police officer, Gargano...

Last week, Perspective asked readers whether Theodore Bacino, who has been in prison for more than three decades for killing a police officer, should be paroled. The story provoked an emotional response. Below is a sampling: "No one who kills a police officer should ever go free." "Let him rot in prison where he belongs--he will only pay his debt when he dies in prison and then goes to hell." "Actions have consequences. His actions over 30 years ago set the consequences...

Remember when Ice Cube used to scare people? These days, the family movie titan is about as menacing as Willow Smith, but it was not always thus. Cube was one of the first to make the transition from menacing rapper to cuddly mainstream star. What would prompt a gangsta to abandon his halcyon life of gun-battling, beef-having and score-settling? Growing older, for one thing-realizing that throwaway comedies and cable TV series pay better than the dwindling returns offered hip-hop stars over...

Time Warner's decision to stop distributing rapper Ice-T's controversial song "Cop Killer" may not end the controversy. Oliver North's Freedom Alliance Group vows to press the nation's governors to bring criminal proceedings against the company for alleged violations of sedition and anti-anarchy statutes. But for most Americans, the decision should bring a sigh of relief. Howls of "censorship" are inevitable whenever artists cannot have everything they want. The charge is unfounded.

Today, Henry Michael Gargano is a 78-year-old rare-coins expert who has suffered two heart attacks, contends with emphysema and takes at least 12 medications. He also is a cop killer, bank robber and two-time prison escapee who had been scheduled to be paroled on Sept. 3 from a federal penitentiary. Now, his release is uncertain. Opposition from the Northlake Police Department, which lost two officers in the bloody 1967 bank...

The Illinois Supreme Court let stand Wednesday the murder convictions of cop killer Andrew Wilson, almost seven years after it found that police torture made him confess to the crimes. The court's one-line order denying Wilson's appeal sharply contrasts with its final word on his first convictions for murdering the two Chicago police officers. Wilson was sentenced to death after those convictions. But the state high court threw them out in 1987 when it found his confession was...

Thirty-three years ago, Theodore Bacino killed a young police officer in a tiny town outside Rockford, gunning him down in an alley after robbing a bank. He doesn't deny pulling the trigger, and his life since has been spent where many think he belongs: behind bars. But Bacino, who soon will appear before a parole board for the 25th time, says that he's reformed, an old man who has paid his debt. Over the span of his decades-long incarceration, sentencing laws and the country's belief...